RANT: Big New Youtube Google+ Changes Nov 2013

[kbhasi]

I just really wonder, but for me, I was a real G+ user, I wanted to get in during the beta but however they had an 18+ and above limit, so I couldn't join it. Then it exited beta and Google started this rubbish by unveiling a new loo, for YouTube that was OK except for the "(g+)Upgrade account" thing on the homepage, which only took me to an error page. Later, they brought down the limit, and I was finally able to join. It was great, and to me, better than Facebook. End of story. Or is it?

Now a (censored) google employee had this (censored) idea to shove G+ in the comments section because he/she loves to SHARE from the COMMENT section. Nobody does that except for this person who should be fired from Google. What's more, I believe Google pays all those big-time "verified name" celebrities to not complain about G+, more like G-. What's more, this employee decided to make YouTube work in his favour and YT seems to be ignoring the settings you set. For example:

• G+ comments on YT: forced default to "Top comments"
• Video playback: forced default to "Auto"
• Inbox button hidden, need to go to youtube.com/inbox

That's all I know of. Even though I connected my account to G+ intentionally, I've watched users' complaints of G+ comments on YT and they mentioned that the G+ bell is cumbersome to use to reply to comments because it focuses on the video rather than the comment. So I decided to take the idea of creating accompanying forum posts for videos(which Dave has done with this video) and take it further. Here's how I did it. (Steps 1 through 9 are for creating the board by the way)

• Took my forum I normally use for extended discussion on my blog posts
• Go to Admin CP
• Create a new board called "YouTube"
• Set permissions as follows(I use Proboards v4.5, your forum system may be different)
• Create threads: Only staff
• Reply to threads: Everyone
• Create polls: Only staff
• Post attachments: Registered members
• Click save
• Create new thread
• Insert title, video and description
• Click save
• Copy URL of thread
• Go to edit video description on YT
• Type "Comments go here:" without quotes and paste URL into top of description
• Go to "advanced" and uncheck "Allow comments"
• Click save
• You're done!

Note the "Reply to threads: Everyone" setting. I feel sorry for those who had to get G+ to comment on videos, so I set it to "everyone" so that users don't need to sign up, they can just enter a name and the CAPTCHA to comment. Here's an example.

[zapta]

...That's all I know of. Even though I connected my account to G+ intentionally, I've watched users' complaints of G+ comments on YT and they mentioned that the G+ bell is cumbersome to use to reply to comments because it focuses on the video rather than the comment. So I decided to take the idea of creating accompanying forum posts for videos(which Dave has done with this video) and take it further. Here's how I did it....

Good for you, that's the beauty of free market and competition.

As for EEVBlog, never took the youtube comments too seriously. The content on this forum is much better.

[TheWelly888]

 
Hate Google+ vehemently! I have never managed to get my head around the garbage that is supposed to be my G-Spot page!

Of all the people that I personally know, literally just one has a G-Spot account!!!!

Disable all the comments and just use the forum.

[Neilm]

Well,,, at least some people get money out of this. 

I seem to get the vague impression she doesn't like Google+.

[cthree]

Some of us do not want any one company or organization to know that much about us, especially an advertising company. The aggregate of all the the data they collect from the vast number of services they operate is staggering. The seemingly innocent individual connections mask the big picture.

If you use Chrome, search, YouTube, Google+, Maps, Gmail and Android, think for a moment just how much data passes through Google and google controlled properties and how much someone would know about you if they had access to all of that data.

What does Google do as a company? Apple is a technology company, they make money selling hardware and software. Microsoft, same thing. How does Google make money? Selling technology? Nope. They OWN technology but they don't make any money from it directly. They allow people to use it for free, all of it. So how do they make money if not from selling technology or the use of technology?

Google is an advertising company. That is how they make money, that is what they do. You thought they were a technology company? Think again! Technology for Goggle serves three purposes:

1) it is a means of delivering ads which Google gets paid to deliver,
2) it is a means of collecting data for accurately targeting those ads,
3) it is a means of measuring the effectiveness of the ads in modifying your behaviour.

The better targeted an ad, the more you can charge for it. The data Google collects from and about you allows them to charge top dollar for the ads they are sending you. Those ads don't have to be on Google properties, they can be on sites like EEVBlog.com as well. Being able to demonstrate the effectiveness of those ads in modifying you behaviour further justifies the premium rate charged, and so it should, it's good value...for the advertiser.

You are not getting Google services for free. Advertisers pay for those services and in return they get to target you with their advertising. Google uses the information they collect about you to charge premium prices to those advertisers in a way most advantageous to them as a corporation. If that doesn't bother you then fine, but don't expect everyone else to give as few fucs as you do about being more effectively manipulated. The next time you walk into Wal*Mart to buy some rubbers and your Galaxy 4 pops up a message reminding you to buy lube as well, think of me, but thank Google.

[cthree]

I think I need to rethink vimeo. I have to grant them the right to use my videos for any use they want, and I get the privilege to pay for it too? Any ideas anyone?

You need to grant vimeo the right to use your videos so they can offer the service. The "anything they want" part is probably just a blanket opt-in so they can develop the service without having to ask every single publisher for permission for every change. If they had to tell you specifically how they were going to display your videos they wouldn't have many options.

YouTube has the same license grant.

[EEVblog]

The question is : do you really care ? i bet 99% of the comments appear on the forum.

No, youtube is a huge comments base.

As a content producer : simpy turn off commenting on the video and put a clear link to the forum below the video and mention it at the beginning of the video.
problem solved.

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Doing that kills your ranking on google, because commenting, liking, and general interaction with your channel is a major part of how youtube/google ranks your videos in search results. How many comments you get in the first X hours etc, contributes greatly. And youtube is the worlds 2nd biggest search engine. It's a big deal.

[Dark Prognosis]

I make review videos of test equipment, mostly multimeters but others are coming. No scamming or making money from that.

I am also going to start publishing other types of videos and also to start showcasing some of my other multimedia services and work which are where I actually make money but not from showing them on the internet.

Youtube and google can die off for all I care. Youtube won't be getting any more of my content. Not that I am important or a big player but if everyone who doesn't make money from actually posting o youtube were to pull their content they would be in trouble I think.

I didn't mean to insinuate you were a scammer I just know of those money making schemes that use youtube as a private link and there are also normal blogs that do that as well.  I sort of figured you were the latter not the former.

[Dark Prognosis]

Well,,, at least some people get money out of this. 

I effing love it.  Thank you for sharing and I think she pretty much summed it up, lol.

[Afrotechmods]

Dave is right about everything and I am SO grateful he made a rant about this. To the average youtuber the new system may have advantages and I can see why they may like the new comment system but content creators have gotten SCREWED. The average Youtuber will never have any idea how awful this Google+ thing is for content creators. Dave is triple fucked because his entire livelihood depends on Youtube being functional and efficient and right now it's worse than Friendster.

[riconette]

just deleted my youtube account and the ramaining associated google stuff.
i dont let myself getting blackmailed into using google+ just for commenting on videos.


edit:

Doing that kills your ranking on google, because commenting, liking, and general interaction with your channel is a major part of how youtube/google ranks your videos in search results.

i've also deleted adobes flash a long time ago (since ccc's "defending the poor", see youtube for that video) so i cant view your videos the normal way - you're using some feature that prevents html5 video playback, so i have to download them "manually" before viewing.
does that still contribute to your youtube-ranking? i hope so :)

[Dark Prognosis]

just deleted my youtube account and the ramaining associated google stuff.
i dont let myself getting blackmailed into using google+ just for commenting on videos.

How?  I could not find a way to actually delete the account only shutdown the channel (it deletes everything).

[AmericanLocomotive]

Has anyone noticed the bizarre Google+ Legion that somehow completely dominated all the top comments of the latest EEVBlog, all pretty much saying the exact same thing?

[riconette]

How?  I could not find a way to actually delete the account only shutdown the channel (it deletes everything).

cant remember. just clicked my way through some logically inconsistent pages, marked some checkboxes with a "i want so get rid of that 5hit" connotation and now i cant log in any more (youtube and gmail), which is sufficient for me.

[c4757p]

Has anyone noticed the bizarre Google+ Legion that somehow completely dominated all the top comments of the latest EEVBlog, all pretty much saying the exact same thing?

Yes, the Google Asslicker Team has been out at all of these anti-G+ videos.

[angst7]

Has anyone noticed the bizarre Google+ Legion that somehow completely dominated all the top comments of the latest EEVBlog, all pretty much saying the exact same thing?

There's nothing bizarre about it.  When Dave posted the video, it was shared to his EEVblog Google+ page.  2759 people have his EEVblog in their circles, so many of them would have seen the video show up in their feed.  Here's what happend next:

Now that comments are integrated, the act of sharing the video showed up as a 'comment' by EEVblog in the Youtube comment area.

Whenever someone +1'd the video share on G+, it's the same as giving the comment a thumbs up on YouTube.  So that comment bubbled to the top.

Now that comments are threaded, all the folks who commented on the video share through Google+ had their comment nested under the highly rated share comment.  Any G+ +1's on these comments were counted as a thumbs up on YouTube.

So, all those comments, are merely the conversation happening on G+ by people who follow EEVblog there, and are talking about it there.  Since they're all G+ users, they likely won't share the distaste for the change, as things are working as usual there, apart from an increase in YouTube video shares.

[fluxcapacitor]

Has anyone noticed the bizarre Google+ Legion that somehow completely dominated all the top comments of the latest EEVBlog, all pretty much saying the exact same thing?

No 

[ron]

Google is worried about our secutity.
 

[GrandTheftAuto4life]

I really hate this "default to top comments" which in many cases now fails since the up/down-vote system is removed.

Another annoying thing is that the youtube inbox is gone. I don't get much comments, but the inbox did actually work...

 

[EEVblog]

Fully concur, it's ridiculous to have each comments laid out in a separate email/page, instead of a easily browse-able list. I'm astonished that they thought this was acceptable.

And when you click on the reply button, it just take you to the general video page instead of a comment reply form.
FAIL.

[s_lannan]

I deleted my google stuff ages ago including youtube. I'm convinced youtube is an experiment to see how much they can piss off a userbase before they leave a website.

[free_electron]

The question is : do you really care ? i bet 99% of the comments appear on the forum.

No, youtube is a huge comments base.

As a content producer : simpy turn off commenting on the video and put a clear link to the forum below the video and mention it at the beginning of the video.
problem solved.

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Doing that kills your ranking on google, because commenting, liking, and general interaction with your channel is a major part of how youtube/google ranks your videos in search results. How many comments you get in the first X hours etc, contributes greatly. And youtube is the worlds 2nd biggest search engine. It's a big deal.

ah. didn't know that.
Guess i'm becoming an old codger ... i never read comments under youtube video's or comment on them. I figured the interesting comments will pop up on the firum.

but i guess advertising clicks depend on video ranking and if that depends on commnets it now depends on the viewers and commenters having a google+ account.
if nobody comments anymore on any youtube video because a g+ account is mandatory then google just shot themselves in the foot...

[chip273]

Hey Dave,
here is an offer:
If you change from Youtube to another video service, or host it by yourself, and on your "http://www.eevblog.com/" mainpage you embed those videos, instead of youtube;
I will subscribe to those Monthly Paypal Donations with 6 AUD Montly for at least 3 years.
If you move to a video service that does not do commercials first, or host them yourself (and embed your own hosting on your mainpage) I will subscribe with 10 AUD.
I know, not much, but hey, maybe others will join.
cheers,
chippy.

Update : Here have a list of services : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_hosting_services

[M0BSW]

Well this is my email to them perhaps if everyone sent them emails it may do something after all their really interested in is advertising revenue.
There is a saying you may not be aware of !!! “If it ain’t broke don't fix it” . What the bloody hell have you lot done google +, like just about everyone one else I don’t want people like you following my every move or as you lot would put “Tailoring the advertisement to suit your needs”this google is a marketing & profit move one step to far. therefore like a lot of other people I will be closing my google account.
I’m disgusted with your antics.
Paul Collins
UK
here's their email address      press@google.com

[jancumps]

I surrendered months ago. Figured that by now they will be knowing everything already , and my real life is not on the internet anyway.
They must have been able to create my consumer profile by now, after so many years on the web - I'm using my own name in blogs and fora -  But when I look at the Ads they put in front of me, they're doing a lousy job.